An experimental snifter of politics & parenting...
Mostly, I now blog at http://tumblerofarmagnac.tumblr.com/ but I keep this site for longer and more personal writing...

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Pain and smiling moments

Pain is not seeing your bear all day. In the morning she's feeding as soon as you get up, and resting between feeds as you leave. You get home, it's evening, she's feeding. After, she's asleep. Then she wakes after a good sleep. Sleep is good. You change her, you hold her to comfort her. She looks at you like 'you're the guy who used to be around all the time but isn't any more' then wriggles and cries until mum takes her off you. You go to bed. You get up in the morning, she's feeding, you pull on an iron-free business shirt, button the cuffs, understand why people buy lottery tickets...

Smiling moments include when you get up to go to the bathroom at 5am and she starts crying and you go into her room and pick her up and hold her to your chest and sing her Hallelujah and she stops crying and her little hands squeeze your chest hairs and you feel her go calm and you put her down after 10 minutes and she is already deeply asleep.

The pain is like having an oxy-torch going inside your intestines. The smiling moments are like snowballs made from white chocolate ice cream.

of pain - get ready for the injuries - you, not the baby. i was thinking the other day that being a parent is a little like being a professional sportsperson because injury is such par for the course. you know, the accidental headbutts, the flying leaps onto your ribs, the hair being pulled mid tantrum, the almost-broken nose. all which you just have to grin and bear, because they don't mean to hurt you.

Yep. It is tough. It began to get easier as I got used to it, and as my eldest got older. Then it started all over again when my youngest was born. And I started paying attention again to when other men talked about similar feelings.

Would you believe who said this? –"A day you miss with you kids is a day you never get back."